All
information in this article is for educational purposes only.It is not for the diagnosis, treatment,
prescription or cure of any disease or health condition.

Milk is the basic dairy
product.It can come from various
animals, and is used in many nations as a staple
food.Human breast milk is the
ideal food for babies, but if it is not available
other animal milks can serve as substitutes.

Milk can be
consumed in its fresh state or processed into cheese, whey, cream, butter,
colostrum, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk and other
products.Sometimes milk is
further isolated or broken down into substances such as casein, calcium supplements, sodium caseinate
(milk proteins) or lactose (milk
sugar).

In nutritional
balancing science, dairy products play a minor role, and are not required.Please limit all milk, cheese, yogurt
and kefir together to no more than four ounces per day or about 100 grams
daily.

Dairy products are best eaten uncooked, and if possible, they should be
organically raised and certified safe by the government.However, that is not necessary because
it can be too costly for small farmers to comply with the raw certified
regulations.

If raw dairy is not available in
your area, make an effort to contact a dairy farmer directly to obtain it.Dairy products that are pasteurized,
homogenized and contain many chemicals are of lower quality, and should be
limited or preferably avoided.

PROBLEMS WITH ALL
DAIRY FOODS

The main problem with milk,
cheese, yogurt and butter is it is quite yin.Yin means cool and expanded in macrobiotic terminology.It is a physics quality.Milk is the most yin dairy product,
while cheese is about the best.

This is the reason
that all dairy products must be limited on a nutritional balancing
program.In addition, many dairy
products are of very poor quality, as explained below.

THE HORROR OF MOST DAIRY PRODUCTS

Serious problems with
most dairy products sold today include:

1. Pasteurization.Pasteurizationmean
either heating milk to about 149° F. or 65° C. for about 30 minutes (the batch
method).A more modern method is
called the continuous method, and involves heating the milk to 161° F. or 72°
C. for at least 16 seconds by passing it over copper rollers.This adds copper to the milk, which is
not desirable.Another method is called ultra-pasteurization that is at a higher
temperature and is even worse.

The rationale for
pasteurization is to kill pathogenic bacteria.Unfortunately, it also destroys some vitamins C and E,
denatures or ruins some delicate proteins in the milk, damages the fat in the
milk, and severely damages the bioavailability of the calcium in the milk.In addition, it can affect hundreds of
enzymes, hormone factors, immune
factors, and more.No one
seriously disputes this fact.

Pasteurization may
have been necessary 100 years ago in America.Today, however, with modern refrigeration and clean farming
practices, it is not needed, given the great damage to
the milk.However, certain
interests viciously defend pasteurization.Among the real reasons are:

1. Pasteurization
causes the centralized control of the milk industry.This is very hard on small dairy farmers, who are not permitted to sell their milk directly to consumers,
but must cater to the centralized pasteurization facilities that can set milk
prices, etc.

2. Pasteurization
allows some sloppy dairy farmers to have sick, infected cows that give infected
milk.The attitude is that the
bacteria will be killed with pasteurization, so who
cares if the cows are malnourished and sick.

3. Many doctors and
other health authorities do not understand the nutritional damage to milk done
by pasteurization, and do not respect the right of people to have choice in
their food.Most of them also have
no interest in providing the best food to the people of America and other
nations.

2. Homogenization.
Homogenization prevents the fat in milk from separating and rising to the top
of the container, as it should.

Homogenization turns milk into a
much more toxic and yin product.It causes the fat particles to be surrounded by
whey and casein, which is unnatural.Also, the fat particles are so small they can
be absorbed directly into the blood stream without digestion.This is very harmful for the body
because fat should be digested before it is
absorbed.It causes many milk
allergies, among other problems.

Homogenizing milk
involves forcing it through tubes with a tiny diameter at extremely high
pressure to break the fat globules in the milk into much smaller
particles.The process may also
involve extreme heat, so it also has an effect similar to a second
pasteurization process, as well.

3. Hybrid cows.Due to hybridization, today’s dairy cows produce two to three times as much milk as did cows 100 years
ago.However, the cows are not
hormonally balanced, and the result is a much less healthful and more yin
milk.This applies to most
“organic” milk, as well.

A few dairy farmers
are bringing back what are called heirloom cows.These are older non-hybridized cows
that are far healthier, but give less milk.This trend, however, is still very early and suchmilk is
difficult to locate.

4. Drugs in the milk.Many, if not most dairy cows are very
sick today due to their hybrid genetics, improper diets and bad living
conditions.As a result,
antibiotics and other drugs are used liberally on many
of them.Residues of these drugs
pass easily into the milk.

An improvement is
something called organic milk, which is supposed to be from cows raised and
handled more naturally.I suggest
this type of milk, cheese and yogurt if you can find it.

5.
Other additives.Some
milk contains chemical vitamins such as synthetic vitamin D added to it.Please do not drink this milk, as the
chemicals make it more yin and less healthful.

Also avoid junk dairy suchas chocolate milk and artificial
cheeses such as Kraft singles and Velveeta.A dairy worker once told me that milk that
is slightly spoiled and tastes bad is used to make chocolate milk.Enough sugar and cocoa is added so the person cannot taste the spoiled product.

Another horror are the “milk shakes”, “floats” and “frappes” from the fast
food restaurants that barely contain any natural ingredients.

Another poor quality product is
any cooked cheese, milk or yogurt.This is found in all pizza, quiche, lasagna and
many other dishes.Cheese, milk
and yogurt should be eaten in the natural state.

CERTIFICATION OF
MILK

Over 100 years ago,
some doctors realized that pasteurized milk was unfit for babies, in
particular, and made them ill.Pasteurization was used commonly to prevent
diseases associated with drinking dirty or contaminated milk.As a result, a much better method of
protecting milk was devised called certification of the safety of raw
milk.

The standards
include that the herd of cows be free of tuberculosis and brucellosis, with
tests every two years.Also, the milk must contain less than 10,000 bacteria per
milliliter.Equipment is inspected
and the milk testing frequently.An even stricter system is the newer Raw USA milk standards.

Lobbying by the
large dairies has contributed a lot to banning the sale of raw milk in most
states in America.The large
dairies see it as competition that they cannot control. However, in my experience, raw milk that
is produced in a healthful way, as most of it is, is
safe and a much better product than pasteurized and homogenized milk.

Organic Milk.A recent attempt to
improve the quality of milk by the health food community is the development of a standard called organic dairy products. While I am not
sure of the exact requirements, presumably fewer drugs, pesticides and other
harmful practices are used in the production of this
milk.In fact, it does appear to
be a better product, although most, sadly, is still pasteurized and some is homogenized as well.

MILK AS A FOOD, NOT A
BEVERAGE

Milk is often
treated as a beverage.However, while it can be drunk, it is really a
very rich food.Downing a huge
glass of milk is not wise at any time.Milk should be sipped, as babies take it, to
obtain all the nourishment it offers.Drinking huge quantities at once are harmful, as it is not that easy to
digest.

There are several reasons for
this.Whole milk is very rich in
fat.This is not easy to digest
and is one reason that milk is processed to remove the
fat.Second, milk is rich in
lactose, a sugar that is also difficult for many adults and
also for some children to digest.This is another reason why mixing it thoroughly with saliva in the mouth
is a very wise idea.This is one
reason that cheese and yogurt are much easier to
digest than plain milk, especially for many adults.

Babies who drink milk or formula
too fast often vomit it up rather than try to digest it when it has not mixed
with some saliva.Saliva can help
greatly to digest milk sugar.

In addition, milk is high in
calcium.Calcium is a needed
mineral, of course, especially for babies.However, drinking too much of it at once tends to alkalinize
the stomach.This is not healthful
because the stomach is supposed to be quite acidic for proper digestion.

TYPES OF MILKS

Whole milk is the milk as it comes directly from the source.It is called whole
because it contains all of its cream or fatty part.

However, milk is
also commonly sold in containers that offer low fat, 2% cream and no fatmilk, which is also called skim
milk because the fat is skimmed off the milk at the dairy or a
processing plant.

Some people buy the
low-fat varieties because they believe or are falsely told
it will keep them and their children from gaining weight.The opposite is often true,
however.The fat is needed.If
the child does not get it, he will drink more than he needs of the skim milk,
causing him to ingest too much sugar in the process.Sugars often cause most weight gain, not quality fats as are found in quality milk.

Eating more fats
actually helps many children and adults to lose weight, especially those with
fast oxidation rate.See the
articles on the Oxidation Types to
understand why.Skim and low-fat
milks are not good for most adults, either.It is too high in sugar in many cases.

Buttermilk.This is a partially fermented milk, often with a high fat
content.It is easier to digest
for some adults than regular milk because the yeast or ferments consume some of
the sugar in the milk.However,
the ferments can make it more difficult to digest for others.For this reason, it is not highly
recommended.A small amount on
cereal may be okay, but that is all that is best.Children who are fast oxidizers may feel better on quality
buttermilk, which is hard to find because it should be organically raised and
minimally processed, which means certified raw.

Colostrum.This is
the first milk that a female animal produces after giving birth.It has a slight bluish color and is the
finest milk in the sense that it contains special immunoglobins
and other substances that help prepare the intestinal tract of the baby to
receive all food items in the future.

Recall
that until a baby begins to feed, the intestinal tract is not in use, since all
nutrition and development depends on the blood that flows from the placenta to
the baby through its naval or bellybutton area. Thus the intestinal tract must be
primed, so to speak, with bacteria and other flora in order for it to work
correctly.

For
this reason, the horrible practice of starting a newborn on formula in the
hospital if the mother cannot begin to breastfeed immediately is a totally insane practice that just causes illness in the
baby.Every effort should be made to assist a baby to obtain colostrum immediately when he or she wants to begin
feeding.There is no reason to
force this process, as the baby may require rest or sleep for hours after a
difficult delivery, or any birth, for that matter.

Every
effort should also be made to assist the mother to start breast
feeding, since the colostrum is the finest
product for the baby.If the
mother cannot breastfeed and the baby is calling for milk, another woman should be found to offer some milk, preferably, before
resorting to formula.This may
sound unclean, but it is far healthier in most cases than
formula of any kind and would result in far healthier babies.

In many nations formula is given out to hospitals and birthing centers at no charge
by companies that want to “hook” the babies on the taste of formula.Then they will never want to
breastfeed.This supports the
formula company, but does nothing beneficial for the child or the mother.The mother is left
with engorged breasts and a colicky child in most instances.We can only hope that the practice of
giving formula in the hospital to newborns will be abandoned sometime soon,
though I doubt it as it is “convenient” and
inexpensive.

Colostrumis also sold
today dried as a powder or in capsules.It can help boost the immune response in a person, although I am not
sure how effective it is and it appears unnecessary
and is somewhat costly.

Yogurt, Kefir and other fermented milk
products.These are very
popular.They are often easier to
digest because the milk sugar, to which some are allergic,
has been consumed by the fermenting organisms added to the milk.

The best kinds are made from organic milk, and are plain rather than
sweetened with fruit or other sugars.Also, the best are full-fat and live
culture.This means the fermenting
organisms are still alive.Many,
such as lactobacillus acidophilus, are healthful for the human intestine in
many cases.Most yogurt and kefir
that is sold, however, is pasteurized, homogenized,
flavored, low-fat and not live culture. This is not a very healthful product
and should be eaten only rarely.

Powdered and Canned Milks.These are poor quality products and should not be used.

Powdered
milk is much harder to digest in most instances, as it is prepared by spraying
the milk over copper rollers in many cases that add copper to the milk, a
chemical element that is not usually found in milk in any appreciable quantity.
Canned milks are usually even worse, and are often old.

Chocolate Milk.This is a horrible concoction for anyone.Don’t ever give it to children, as it
is mostly sugar.Chocolate milk
sold in stores often contains older or poorer quality milk whose taste is disguised by the sugar and chocolate flavors.

MILK AND BABIES

While there is much
controversy over the nutritional wisdom of eating dairy when one is an adult,
most agree that babies love milk, especially human milk.

Mother’s milk is by
far the best for babies for dozens of reasons.I will just name a few, however, to make the point.

To begin with, it is uniquely made for human babies.A second reason is that it is free from harmful bacteria in
most cases.When formula is made up, the purity of the water and even the container
are unknown.This is a common
source of infection among formula-fed babies.

A third reason is
the nutritional content is far better than any formula,
and much better than cow or goat or sheep milk as well.For more breastfeeding, an extremely
important subject, see our article entitled Breastfeeding.

Alternatives
to Breast Feeding.If mother’s milk is not
available or is not tolerated well, a number of
options exist.Here is a list of
these, from best to worst.Please
look at it carefully, because too many babies are immediately placed on
store-bought formula which is about the worst
alternative.

1. A Wet nurse is, by far, the best alternative to having
one’s own mother’s milk, and may be better if for some reason the baby will not
tolerate the mother’s milk.This
could be due to the mother’s health, psychological condition or some other
incompatibility.

For this reason,
nursing mothers need to exercise care when taking vitamins or any medications,
even over-the-counter drugs.Babies can be extremely sensitive to them.Always take the vitamins or medication at least two to three
hours before starting breast feeding.

If the baby will not
tolerate the mother’s milk for any reason, a wet nurse is an old idea that should be revived.Some nursing women have too much milk and would gladly
help with another baby.The
baby could feed at the breast or the milk can be expelled or
pumped into a container.Even a little of this is wonderful.

2.
Formulas: A meat-based formula is one option.It is best using lamb, for example, that is cooked,
preferably boiled for a while and then shredded.This, however, is a lot of work and may not taste best,
either.

Also, be sure with
any bottle feeding not to warm the milk, either
mother’s milk or other, in a microwave oven if possible.Use a pan with hot water in it and
place the bottle in the water.This is not only much gentler.It will not burn the milk, or introduce plastic from a plastic bottle as
much into the milk.Microwaves may
also damage the nutrients in the milk.

3. The animal milk formula.This is almost as good as the meat
formula and much easier to prepare.Goat milk, preferably raw and certified, is often less allergenic, but
organic cow milk, preferably raw and certified, is also good for many babies.Always
modify non-human milks for babies by adding fish or flaxseed oil and vitamins
and minerals. The essential fatty acids contained
in these oils are critical for a baby’s brain development.For the recipe for a milk-based natural
formula, read Natural Baby Formula.

4. Nut, seed or bean milks.These should not be
called milks because they are not nearly as nutritious as real animal or
human milk.They are also very yin
in macrobiotic terminology.We suggest
avoiding them all.This includes soy, almond, hemp
and other nut and seed milks.

5. Grocery Or
Drugstore Canned or Packaged Formula.The worst food for babies is often a drugstore formula that is loaded
with sugar, artificial flavors, some powdered milk or milk substitute and comes
in a can.

OTHER DAIRY
PRODUCTS

All dairy products
should be eaten in as natural and whole a state as
possible.Organically raised
animals are the best sources, where this is possible.

Cream And Butter.Whole milk
separates if left standing for several hours or more.The liquid part is called milk and
goes to the bottom.On top is the
fat, which is calledcream.

If the cream is whipped or
churned for an hour at least, its chemical structure changes and it becomes butter.Butter is very similar to cream, but is much harder at room
temperature and can be more easily spread on foods
like bread.

Butter is not quite as healthful
as the original cream because the chemical reaction needed to make it destroys
a little of the cream’s beautiful structure.However, butter and cream are both good fats, especially if
the cows are allowed to graze freely.

In this case, the butter and
cream have a rich texture that contains a good quantity of omega-3 fatty acids
that are much needed today.Sadly, if one pasteurizes the cream or butter, much of this is destroyed.If possible, always use raw butter and cream and do not cook them.If they are to be
added to a dish, cook the rest of the dish and add the cream at the end.

CHEESES

Cheese is made in special ways that change the properties of the
milk substantially.The process
varies, but is basically the following:

1. The milk is usually heated to above room temperature, but not to a
boil.

2. Then a “culture” is
added to the milk.This consists
of live bacteria or other organisms.In the warm milk, the added organisms grow fast.

3. The product is
left overnight, and sometimes for much longer.The result is calledcurds and whey.Both are
nutritionally rich.The curds are
more solid and contain more protein. The whey is usually watery, richer in certain sugars and has
a sweeter taste.

4. The next step is
to separate the curds from the whey.This is done traditionally by forcing the water out of the curds with a
cheese press or squeezing the curds in a cheese cloth,
a semi-permeable piece of cloth that only allows the whey to pass through.

If the process stops
here, one gets what is calledcottage cheese, named
after people making simple cheese in their own homes.Among Italians, a fresh cheese that is healthful is calledricotta.

Aged Cheeses Harder To Digest.If cheese processing continues, the
cheese is allowed to dry somewhat and usually is
placed in molds to form its shape.Often the cheese is aged, which means it is left
to settle for a number of days or longer.This end product is called aged cheese and is
usually harder in texture.

Junk Cheeses.Most cheese today is mass-produced in huge
batches and many shortcuts are taken to produce it faster.For instance, many chemicals may be added to it, it is not aged naturally, and preservatives
and other chemicals are added to make it keep longer.

As a result, most
cheese is close to junk food status.This is what your child is eating when he or she eats most pizza, for
example, or most Mexican dishes.It is especially the case in restaurants, where cutting costs is the
primary consideration, and not your health.

The worst cheese is called “cheese food” or “processed cheese”.Velveeta and Kraft make this fake
food.Its ingredients don’t let
you know that it may be made from rejected milk and
other dairy products that cannot be sold fresh.Then many chemicals, colors, flavors
and more, are added and even glue is added to give it “consistency”.This is not really a food, but it is
what is served in some schools, many restaurants and even in fancy
establishments as well.

A Word
About Margarine.Margarine, shortening, Crisco, non-dairy creamers and related
products are often found in the dairy section of
supermarkets.However, they bear
little resemblance to real dairy products.They contain hardly any nutrients and many toxic
substances.

Never eat these
unless you are starving to death and they are the only available foods.They are all quite harmful to our
bodies.Despite scientific
evidence regarding their harm, they are widely used in restaurants, in
particular.They are also found in hundreds of prepared food items from
peanut butter and eggs cooked in them, to almost all pastries, rolls and other
baked goods.

Many adults (and
children, too) have a milk sensitivity or “allergy”.This can cause stomach pain, a runny nose and many other
possible symptoms.In a few cases,
it seems to result in a milk addiction.Read Food Addictions for more
information on this interesting topic.

The adult problem
with most milks may be due to the casein (milk
protein) or lactose (milk sugar).However, it can be to other constituents of milk as well.

Some contend that
the reason for the allergies is that adults should not consume dairy products
as they are designed for suckling babies.However, most cultures in the world do
consume dairy into adulthood, including many extremely healthy populations in
Europe, for example.Asians and
black-skinned people often have more problems with dairy products as a rule,
and consume much less of them.It
appears that the Caucasian or white race can digest dairy protein better.